Born or Made, Still OK

Born this way or not? Does it even matter? This is what I've been trying to say.

Misconceptions the 'Good Guys' Have

Today I saw a picture that said, "I am gay! I have the constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Can you guess what's wrong with this statement?
Answer: The 'right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' is not in the Constitution. It is in the Declaration of Independence, which doesn't actually determine our laws. You have the constitutional right to freedom of religion, freedom of the press, a trial by your peers, and a few other things encoded in what's basically an appendix to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
That's not the point.
The point is that if you don't check your facts and know your material cold, why should your opponent take you seriously? How can you argue with an anti-gay-rights person that your rights are being infringed upon if you don't know what your rights are? How can you convince them that you have a point if you say something that's merely in the right spirit, but not factually correct?
To change minds, your arguments have to be airtight. You want to be the one poking holes in their arguments, not the one scrambling while your arguments are falling apart. Granted, you'll probably have more success changing minds by standing up and saying, "I am a gay second class citizen, and this is my story," but when the people on the fence call out to you and say, "Hey. Why should I help you get married?" what are you going to say?
Well, for starters, if you want to do any good, you won't quote the Constitution without having article and paragraph numbers.
For another thing, you won't say something like, "Being gay is entirely genetic." Quoting scientific findings is a lot like quoting legal decisions. You're better off having someone who understands the field putting it in layman's terms. Thankfully, I'm a lot better at deciphering science-speak than legalese. I wrote the paper on this, literally. (You'll get to see it soon.) Here's what we know or think we know:

• If one identical twin is gay, the other twin has a 50/50 shot at also being gay. 
• Identical twins share the same genes. Anything that is entirely genetic will be the same for both of them. Always.
• If a gay man has a gay uncle, they may tend to share a gene on the X chromosome.
• Just because two things tend to happen together, doesn't mean one causes the other. There's a whole bunch of ways things can be linked. For example, you notice that the tree leaves in your neighborhood are turning yellow and falling off. Is the turning yellow what causes them to fall? Is the falling (or preparation for falling) what causes them to turn yellow? Or is something else causing both?
• Fraternal (non-identical) twins are more likely than ordinary siblings to both be gay.
• Some people still claim to have changed sides or chosen their sexuality.

We are not helping our case at all to claim that being gay has been proven to be caused by genes. The best we can do is admit that the whole thing is confusing, complex, and hasn't undergone enough study. Our focus needs to be not on why we are gay, but whether it matters that we are.

News and Politics

I know I've been absent for a couple months, but I've been racking up the news articles to send you. Warning: NYTimes.com only lets you view ten free articles a month, so think carefully before clicking the links. I can get around that by getting them sent to me in my inbox, but even I can't view my bookmarks.
 So, Biden's big announcement in favor of same-sex marriage. I'm sure you've heard about this. Drove the White House a little crazy, rushing to make sure everyone knew this was Biden's personal opinion and not the official stance, and forcing Obama to say something one way or the other. I feel for the big man--he got voters from both sides by walking the line, and this doesn't help his cause. Quite frankly, I'm worried about what will happen if Mitt Romney gets in office. It really feels like he sets his stance based on what he thinks the public wants to hear, and changes it accordingly. What is the problem with Obama? I hope this is the article that talks about this--I keep getting a message that says I've read my free articles for the month before I can even read enough to see if it's the one I want. Basically, Romney's telling us Obama lost the country jobs--well, in his first few months of taking office, before his policies could take effect. And now he's trying to get us to return to the same policies that got us into this mess. Who really believes two terms are enough to dig the country out of its hole? Who thinks that a man who won't take a stance of his own and says what he thinks you want to hear will make a good president?  (Apparently, a lot of people.) And Romney won't support same-sex marriage--he says so himself, although he also apparently has friends who are gay. Yes, ObamaCare may be in line with socialist ideals. But guess what? So is public education. It doesn't make him evil. We're so close to getting many of our rights, despite some waffling in the White House--Obama Won't Order Ban on Gay Bias by Employers--some of the original top supporters of DOMA are trying to get it revoked, and the public mind is changing all the time. Don't let the country take two steps back for every step forward. Pull out your common sense. Leave the states vs federal debate and the abortion debate for another day. Debate them in your own time, please do. Work to change people's minds for the things you really care about. But the whole country's going to suffer if you elect Mitt Romney. Re-elect Obama. Pass it on.

In other news:
Homophobic? Maybe You're Gay
All you have to do is watch Glee to know some of the most vehement anti-gays out there are in the closet and scared to death. A good reason to turn the other cheek and be kind to those who hate your guts.
Methodists Vote Against Homosexuality Rule Change
Basically, the Methodists have it written down that homosexuality is incompatible with their teachings, and they decided not to rewrite it.
Harming the Troops
Military Chaplains officially can't marry same-sex couples, even in states where it's legal. I think. Legalese confuses the heck out of me. I shall never be a politician.
Malawi President Wants to Repeal Nation's Antigay Laws
Malawi, a country in Africa, currently has laws prohibiting homosexual acts, but its president wants to repeal them if she can.
And:
Rutgers Webcam-Spying Defendant Sentenced to 30 Days
This is the kid who spied on his roommate having gay sex using a webcam, and posted about it on Twitter, leading to the young man's suicide.

Marriage legality

I was reading the New York Times today, and came across this article. It's about the fight for gay marriage and the new donor pool it has. The really interesting thing, though, was that I recognized the name of the Republican lawyer, Theodore B. Olsen. I came across him while writing my research paper. He stood out for writing about why conservatives ought to support gay marriage, something I think needs to be a central point in changing minds. You can't change many minds just by saying 'this is right' and 'your way is unconstitutional', you need to add a 'this is why you should want this' to the mix. People are selfish, and often won't do anything unless it benefits them or their values in some way. Anti-gay people know that refusing to pass ENDA and similar laws (not marriage--by legal definition, we have exactly the same right as straight people: to marry the opposite sex*) is pretty unconstitutional. They probably know they haven't got any decent arguments. But the whole idea of gay marriage and gayness at all hits their gag reflex. Plain and simple, they don't like it. So they throw everything they've got, like money and religion, against it. We need to make them like it. We need to tell them why they should want equality for all.
Here's Olsen's article.

*This confuses a lot of people. If you're one of them, I'll put it in black and white.
Susan is straight. She has the legal right to marry a man, whether or not she loves him. She couldn't marry a woman for whatever crazy reason. She doesn't have the right.
Annie is gay. She also has the legal right to marry a man, even if she doesn't love him. She couldn't marry a woman even if she does love her. She doesn't have the right.
There's no actual legal difference. Gay and straight (and bi) women alike have the right to marry a man, not a woman. Gay and straight (and bi) men alike have the right to marry a woman, not a man.
Straights don't actually get any special privileges--they're just lucky enough to have the people they're attracted to/people they're capable of loving in the same category as people they're legally allowed to marry, while gay people aren't.
This is not to say I support this. Yes, I think the federal legal definition of marriage should be changed. Point is, this is how things stand. We can't really shout 'equal rights' on this because we have them. What we're asking for is more rights--the right to marry any legal adult human being we please. It'll extend to straight people as well, who don't have that right either, although they generally don't want to marry someone of the same sex, so no one sees them as missing out.

Girl Scout Cookies

A transgender Colorado child named Bobby wants to join Girl Scouts.
So what?
Well, a lot of people are up in arms about it. One teenage girl posted a video on YouTube about it, asking people to boycott buying Girl Scout Cookies to protest. Ironically, she says other transgender kids have been allowed to join in the past. Implied, without an issue, as it should be. Poor Bobby and her family, having to deal with this. Read the story.
Even my district's Girl Scout council is pulling together for an emergency meeting about attempts to "discredit" Girl Scouts. Some people are agreeing to boycott. Others have decided to up their order.
I'm asking you to do the same. Buy more Girl Scout cookies. And it's not just me. Buck Angel, a transgender former Girl Scout, is asking you, too. Support transgender girls' right to be part of Girl Scout troops if they want. Buy more cookies.

Russia discriminates

Copied from an email from the Courage Campaign.

Aeroflot, Russia's largest airline, discriminates against its gay and lesbian employees as an official policy, according to published reports. Gay flight attendant Maxim Kupreev decided to organize an LGBT employee group to push for equal treatment of LGBT people by the airline. Aeroflot's answer? Marry a woman or you are fired.
Aeroflot is part of the SkyTeam alliance co-founded by Delta and Air France, both of which market heavily in the LGBT community. Ask Delta and Air France to suspend Aeroflot until the airline treats all their employees with respect.
I care about this issue because, since 1983, I've spent a number of years in the USSR and then Russia. Even after I came out in the early 1990s, I was careful about being too "public" in Russia. My sexuality was used against me in business, with some people mocking and attacking my reputation simply because I'm a gay man. So when I read that -- over twenty years later -- Aeroflot was still oppressing gay employees, I had to stand up.
Will you stand with me and Maxim Kupreev and tell Delta and Air France to suspend its alliance with Aeroflot until the company apologizes and sets standards for fair treatment of LGBT employees?
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton historically announced last month that LGBT rights are human rights. Still, major Russian companies refuse to allow their gay citizens to live as real people. Imagine if your employer forced you to marry someone you did not love. We have to stand up for human rights violations wherever they take place, including Russia.
Tell Delta and Air France to set a better example and demand that Aeroflot treat all of its employees with dignity and respect.

Mind-opening

In my English class, each of us has to choose a social issue and write all his or her papers that semester on that topic. (You may notice my language is more correct than usual. That's English class rubbing off on me.) As you may imagine, I chose gay rights. The more I do my research, the more I am appalled and frightened by the opinions some people have, and enlightened about others. The biologist, the computer programmer, and the lesbian desperate for civil rights within me want sexuality to be a fixed, born-this-way, unchangeable kind of deal. But to be fair, the more I read personal statements and about my opponents' opinions, I'm starting to wonder about that. I'm reading more and more about people who seem to have successfully chosen to be straight again, perhaps after confronting some deep dark past. I'm reading about studies that show changes in sexuality over a lifetime. I'm reading that 'many' homosexuals seem to display the psychological circumstances I dismissed, detachment from the same-sex parent, and huge numbers of gay men who were, as children, molested by men. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm taking all of this with a grain of salt. But now I think that sexuality is probably far more fluid than my black-and-white philosophy had room for. It's entirely possible that some people can choose their sexuality, or change it. It's possible that sexuality can change and evolve on its own, even after adulthood, and that environment does play some part in it. Don't take this as somehow an admission of guilt, though. I firmly believe that most people would suffer more harm than good to try to change their sexual orientation, and that forcing it is likely a bad thing. I do not believe there is anything wrong with being gay. But if your sexuality starts to change, I think it's important to be open to it, to be willing to go with it, whichever direction it runs in. Sexuality is most likely this giant interaction between genes, hormones, environment, and maybe a few other things as well. After all, people weren't considered homosexuals forever. It was many years before people who liked the same gender stopped having anything to do with the opposite gender too. My thesis changed from somewhere in the vicinity of 'sexual minorities should have legal minority rights' to 'all hail freedom of sexuality' and maintaining that anyone should be able to be with anyone and not be discriminated against for it. I'll post my paper on here if my teacher lets me.

DADT dust

I don't pretend to understand politics. Why is it, for example, that I get the distinct impression that people I know are Republican because they are against abortion instead of because they care whether the federal government or the states put down the laws?
Or how can it be that the repeal of DADT passed the House and Senate and was signed by the President months ago and is only now going into effect?
*sigh* Oh, well. I'll probably never be a lawyer. At any rate, we can celebrate because DADT is now completely and totally in the dustbin as of today. Hooray!
Here's an article about those people who think the repeal is a bad thing. It's not exactly objective, but it puts voice to those feelings of "What? But that's obviously ridiculous!" that are so bad at making points.
Now I could join the military if I wanted, because I would have no intentions of going into a field where I had to hide. Please. Did enough of that in high school, right? I probably never will. Military isn't my style. But to all those whose calling is overseas--the world is your oyster.

Liberty and Justice for All?

Back in '09 a kid in Arkansas refused to pledge allegiance to the flag because we are not free. Read more. Why can't we all sit down? The Pledge of Allegiance is a serious thing. I've seen people giggle and fool around during it before.
Think about what you're saying. What's a pledge? A serious promise that you don't break. And 'allegiance'? Allegiance means you stand together.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America".
I promise, and will never break this promise, that I will stand with the symbol of the United States of America.
"And to the republic for which it stands".
Self-explanatory.
And skipping to the end?
"With liberty and justice for all".
This is not true. We are not free. We are not treated justly.
What a day when the Pledge of Allegiance is announced and the silence brings down the house.
What a day when liberty and justice for all are once again granted and the people stand up to say it again.

We are not free.

It's Memorial Day today in dear old America. And yesterday, at church, I heard something during the Intentions that kind of threw me, something about all the brave soldiers that died to protect our freedom.
But we aren't free.
Don't get me wrong. Those men and women who died were very brave and deserve recognition, and they died for many freedoms we should all be grateful for. We have freedom of religion, of the press, equal rights for all races and both genders, and even the right to elect our own leaders. These freedoms are precious and should not be taken lightly.
But we won't be completely free until gender identity and sexual orientation matter as little as biological gender or skin color.
We will not be free until laws allowing same-sex marriage, allowing gay people to serve in the military openly, preventing employers from firing people because they are gay or transgender, are made federal.
We must fight for our freedom. We might not be soldiers on the battlefield, but we can still fight.

If you want to tell the Democrats all this, you might read and sign the Courage Campaign's letter.

Please help end DADT!

When you sign a petition from the Courage Campaign, they ask you to send an automatic email to your friends. Here's one.

I just signed on to a letter from Gov. Howard Dean to President Obama asking him to end "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this year.

With DADT repeal legislation being delayed indefinitely, it is now more important than ever that President Obama use the power of his office to repeal DADT as a part of the Defense Authorization bill currently under consideration in Congress.

Will you join me in signing Gov. Dean's letter to President Obama? Just click on the link below to add your name:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/DontWaitDontDelay

Thanks!

This is ridiculous.

Why can't same-sex couples be married?
Seriously. Give me one good answer.
Is your proposed answer that the Bible condemns gay people? Or that marriage is between a man and a woman? Go and read the facts.
As far as I can see, the only problem Christians ought to have with gay people being together is sex before marriage. And isn't the logical step to offer us marriage? Legal and spiritual?
Updated Jan. 13 (which may be slightly out of date, but can't be too far out of whack) the Human Rights Campaign shows us the big picture.
Computer won't read it?
It says:
29 states have "constitutional amendments restricting marriage to one man and one woman" 18 of which are "states where the law or amendment that does, or may, affect other legal relationships, such as civil unions or domestic partnerships".
12 states have "law restricting marriage to one man and one woman".
Wikipedia tells us that "same-sex marriages are currently granted by five of the 50 states, one federal district, and one Indian tribe:

• In Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, D.C., marriages for same-sex couples are legal and currently performed.
• The Coquille Indian Tribe in Oregon also grants same-sex marriage."

I'm guessing they mean Native American tribe, not strictly Indian.

Five. As opposed to 41 states that strictly forbid it.

Wikipedia also says that, "In New York, Rhode Island, and Maryland, same-sex marriages are recognized, but not performed",
"As of June 1, 2009, New Jersey has created legal unions that, while not called marriages, are explicitly defined as offering all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state (though not federal) law to same-sex couples. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Washington have created legal unions for same-sex couples that offer varying subsets of the rights and responsibilities of marriage under the laws of those jurisdictions".
Go ahead and check out this article. It has a lot to say on the subject.
Makes me wonder what all these people have to say about New Mexico. The map shows it as not having law or constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage, yet the Wikipedia article doesn't talk about it, despite having been updated today.

And meanwhile, on the Supreme Court...

I received an email from Rick Jacobs and the Courage Campaign just now. It was about GLBT people being potentially banned from serving on the Supreme Court. This is ridiculous. Here are some quotes included in the email.

"[A] gay judge's sexual preference will, without any question whatsoever, 'interfere with their job.' It's not possible for it to be otherwise... We simply should not elevate to the highest court in the land people who are known for engaging in sexually abnormal behavior which would technically make them felons in a quarter of the states over which they will have jurisdiction." -- Bryan Fischer, American Family Association

"We can assure you that we recognize that homosexual behavior is a sin and does not reflect God's created intent and desire for humanity. Further, we at Focus do affirm that character and moral rectitude should be key considerations in appointing members of the judiciary, especially in the case of the highest court in the land." --Focus on the Family
(The email's punctuation and emphasis, my inserted credit to the second quote)

I signed the Courage Campaign's petition to keep sexual orientation from being a consideration in appointees to the Supreme Court. They offered me the chance to send an email urging my family and friends to do the same. And I copied and pasted that email here.

Have you heard that right-wing groups like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association are insisting that gays and lesbians should be disqualified from serving on the Supreme Court?

It's outrageous. With a Supreme Court vacancy opening up after the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, I just signed a letter to President Obama insisting that sexual orientation should NOT be a factor in selecting his Supreme Court nominee.

Will you join me? It only takes a minute to sign:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/NotAFactor

The religious right is firing up their massive lobbying machine and we need as many people to combat their outrageous attacks on LGBT people.

Thanks!

Hospital Rights

I couldn't believe it was true that hospitals would ban gay and lesbian couples from visiting their partners in the hospital. It turns out this wasn't exact, but applied to serious illness and incapacitation. But no more.
I remember watching an interview with the Obama party pre-election where they stated that they think we should have the right to visit each other in hospitals. And now it's happened. At every hospital that accepts Medicare and Medicaid, patients have the right to choose who visits them and who "may make their critical health-care decisions". Read the story here.
And read the Human Rights Campaign's take on it here.

Same-Sex Marriage in DC Celebrated in Post

I was reading the paper today, looking for the advice columns, when I happened upon an article about a gay wedding planner. I searched for it online, and first found a new article interviewing two gay rights activists of different generations.
If you still have the paper, the articles are pages C1 and C3 of the Metro Section and E10 of the Arts & Style section of the Washington Post.
The article about the interview was columnist Robert McCartney. He talked with Frank Kameny, who he says picketed the White House and "forced the American Psychiatric Association to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness". The other was Rich Madaleno, a Maryland state senator, who hopes the signing of the bill will press home to straight couples that gay couples are no different. He raises two adopted children with his partner.
The other article, by Ellen McCartney, is about Rob Gillan, the founder of D.C.'s Gay Wedding Planners, and the shocking number of inquiries he's received when "setting up a company focused on gay weddings". Also mentioned is Kathryn Hamm, who runs the site GayWeddings.com.
As a girl who can only recall fantasizing about how she would design her wedding to her wife, I think this is a wonderful thing to work for. Let's just cross our fingers that no Prop 8 problems crop up in DC as they did in California.

This is why we have to fight

"'Loving! Lusting, you mean. Read your Bible... Read Leviticus, read Romans 1:26.' I don't know what I said then. Maybe I didn't say anything. I'm not sure I was able to think any more. I do remember, though, that I went home and read Leviticus and Romans, and cried again."
~ Garden, Nancy. Annie on My Mind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982. (Place of publication unknown)
It touches something deep inside me and makes me feel like crying to think of kids being read Leviticus and Romans and told that they are abominations. Why must What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality be so little known that my local library system doesn't have it?
This is why I have to do this. This is what to keep in mind. This is why apathy won't cut it. This is why we have to fight.
Because apathy won't cut it. "I don't care what you do in your own time." "Why can't gay people do what they want and leave us alone?"
Because we aren't a disease, to be hidden away and forgotten about. In recent memory, I heard a conversation in which a girl had never heard of gay girls. She seemed to think it only applied to men. I had never even heard of the concept of transgender until a few years ago. How can we expect our teens to feel good about themselves, when as far as they know, nobody else is like them? When a girl likes other girls and assumes it's just friendship love and that it will always be better than romantic love? What will happen when she's engaged, or even married, and realizes the truth? When a boy who is biologically a girl, or vice versa, assumes that something is wrong with them--or flat out assumes they are gay, when that isn't necessarily true? How can we expect teens to grow up well-adjusted when they are seriously confused? When there is no obvious support, or anyone they know they can turn to with questions? When everywhere same-sex couples are still denied marriage, not to mention marriage within their faith? That isn't going to work. We have to fight if we want any of that. No, apathy won't cut it. If you're not against us, please, join us.

Same-sex marriage bill signed

I was watching this live earlier today, but as the sound was turned off, I couldn't really catch what was going on other than that a same-sex marriage bill was being signed. Here's the story, or watch it here.

Gay Rights Marchers in DC

View the article here. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a military policy which bans questioning about sexual orientation, but allows gays to be discharged for coming out.

Cleve and the Courage Campaign

Today I got an email from Cleve Jones.
It was about repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which of course, only applies to opposite-sex marriages. As important as that is, it's not what I'm here to talk about today.
For those of you to whom the name, Cleve Jones, seems familiar, he's the guy with the Afro and glasses in the movie Milk.
Unfortunately, it's an R-rated movie, mostly for profanity. But beyond the surface, it's a heartbreaking story, one that anyone (over 17) should see. It won Sean Penn an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Dustin Lance Black one for Best Original Screenplay. Watch the video of Black's acceptance through Courage Campaign. You won't regret it.
For those of you who are wondering how he got my email address, the email was a global, sent by way of the Courage Campaign. Who knows whether Cleve actually wrote the email or just signed his name? But, for the first time, a Courage Campaign email had a personal feel, apart from them mostly being for a cause (obviously) dear to my heart, because I'd heard of the person it was said to be from. Though I'd gotten an email from him before, that time I hadn't known who he is.
The Courage Campaign sends updates on events important to the GLBTQ community, like the status of Prop 8, and the story of Lt. Dan Choi, an army lieutenant, who was fired for refusing to lie about his sexual orientation and, very often, a request for donations. Among other things.
In its own words, the Courage Campaign is "the online organizing hub for progressive Californians. We are a network of more than 700,000 grassroots and netroots citizens empowered to leverage online tools for offline activism." Even if you're not a Californian (I'm not) it's good to be up-to-date.
If you read this post, but decided not to click on any of the links, go back and do it. Some of them are just FYI, but some of them are because I want you to see it. The video of Black's acceptance is one of them. It's not very long. It's worth your time. Let Black inspire you, in the movie whose screenplay he wrote and his speech both, to give your time to me. To us.